Accompany me to the end of the world

Meggie 2022-01-18 08:02:44

This is a back alley called Blue Avenue in Paris in the 1960s. The black warbler with green skirt and red lips and enchanting body standing at the entrance of the street, and a freckled girl with a hula hoop in a narrow patio covered with afterglow, standing The white-bearded old man silently observing the world behind the grocery store counter, and the childish boy wearing a white vest after school, standing in front of the second-floor window watching all this. This is adapted from the original work of French writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (Mr. Ibrahim and the Flower of the Quran), just like that in the old light on the dim film. Slowly kicking off the curtain, in the poor world under the lens, there are a little green commotion, warm human feelings and simple philosophies.

"Smiles can create miracles."
On the day when he was just 16 years old, the boy in front of the window couldn't wait to smash the piggy bank he had saved for many years, went to the grocery store and replaced it with the whole money, and then came he had been peeping in the window for a long time. In front of Liu Ying, she said the phrase "It's really hot today", which she had practiced countless times at home, and tried her first physical entertainment as her own coming-of-age gift. This young man named Momo looks very much like Antoine in Truffau [four hundred under]. He has the same clear eyes, gentle heart, and is in a situation similar to Antoine. He was caught by the teacher in class. Laughing embarrassingly, living alone in the absence of his mother and the indifference of his father.
Momo's father was not as evil as Antoine's stepfather, but he didn't know how to be a qualified father. He was silent and stubborn. Every day he walked in by taking off his jacket, turning off the lights and radio in Momo’s room, eating a prepared dinner, and the program was fixed; Flower"; He always habitually used Momoco Pauli's various advantages to humiliate Moses, but later proved that Pauli was completely fabricated by him. Then he was unemployed, left a sum of money and left home, and waited for Momo to hear from him again, he had been killed under the train. In fact, there is not much difference between his death and not dying in Momoa. Anyway, he has never empathized with Momoa's life and temperament. His spiritual significance as a father never existed. The one who died on the Marseille railroads was just a soulless person. Body.
Fortunately for Mobi Antoine, he was not pushed to face the cruelty of society because of the fragmentation of his family, because he met Mr. Ibrahim, the owner of the grocery store. Mr. Ibrahim is already very old, just like his actor Omar Sharif, who is no longer the young and sturdy leader of the Harisu tribe in [Lawrence of Arabia], or the one who was displaced in troubled times. The [Doctor Zhivago] became an elegant white-bearded grandfather, just like many grandfathers in the theme of year-end friendship. There is a mysterious power in his eyes, swarthy wisdom about life hidden deep, and there is always a smile on the gully face, and a kind of generosity of compassion is smiled on his face. He clearly sees this man named Momo in front of him. The child has a floating soul in the world, waiting for his help.
The intersection between Momo and the old man started with theft. In order to save change from the fixed food expenses given by his father, he stole a can from the old man’s grocery store every day, but he didn’t want the old man to see everything in his eyes. He said, "You don't owe me. If you want to steal, I would rather you steal it in my shop." When he said that, the old man was smiling and gentle, just sitting behind the counter loosely, making people feel A kind of calmness that you can rely on. Then, he began to teach Momo to save money on the "wrong way": use canned cats as meat sauce, buy bread that can be eaten for a few days, and how to mix other wines in Beaujolais... just like [Paradise Cinema], [Butterfly], [Atlantis Heart], [Encountering Love at the Corner of the World], [Mind Catcher] and so on, almost all year-end dating theme movies, the elders full of love and wisdom finally appear, guiding the sinking The lonely child walked out of confusion, and the movie also began its most moving chapter.
He took Momo to buy new shoes, went for a walk, and took a Turkish bath. Knowing that Momo is obsessed with the body of the Orioles, the old man said: "My Quran says that it is better for novices to start with these professionals."; When Momo complained about the poorness of the Blue Avenue, the old man said: "Just With the heart, you can find beauty everywhere." Upon learning that Momo was broken in love, the old man said: "It doesn’t matter, your love for her will always belong to you. Even if she refuses, she can’t change the facts. What you give will always belong to you, and what you have will never disappear." The most important thing is that the old man told Momo: "Smiles can create miracles." In a mantra of life regardless of whether the age of 16 can understand , Momo's role as a spiritual father that had been missing for a long time was finally filled by Mr. Ibrahim, until his biological father committed suicide, and the old man adopted Momo as a matter of course and became Momo's true father.
In the last 30 minutes of the film, the old man took the motorcycle and drove the newly bought sports car to start their return journey. They traveled many places, saw the ease of Switzerland, saw poverty in Albania, and felt the happiness of a slow-paced life in Greece. "Look, Momo, I have worked hard all my life, but I also make good use of my time to work slowly. Do I not want to make a lot of money? Or I do not want to see long queues of customers? No, Neither.'Slow' is the secret of happiness." The old man said to Momo. More of us have been taught to be "fast" since we were young, striving to gain fame and wealth, so that we can be happy. In fact, only a few of us who have been on the road can find inner happiness. Momo is undoubtedly lucky, because when he was 16 years old, there was an elder who used the wisdom he had learned throughout his life, so that he no longer had to trudge in the quagmire of life, but directly set foot on a path to happiness. . This is a life experience that so many of us can't ask for. And this kind of "slowness" also makes the film's outlook on life very different from that of Alfred in [Paradise Cinemas]. He ended Toto's ignorant love and made him leave his hometown at the cost of 30 years of loneliness. Become famous.

"I know what is in my Quran."
But if [Mr. Ibrahim and the Flower of the Quran] stop here, then it will be no different from the years-old acquaintance movies mentioned above, with deep affection for young and old, full of proverbs, and delicately laid out a kind of old-fashioned plot for granted. Indulge in a sentimental sentiment of course. However, the advantage of [Mr. Ibrahim and the flower of the Quran] is that it is not only in the human world. Ibrahim is an old Muslim named Ibrahim (Ibrahim is the prophet recorded in the Quran, which is Islamic). The common ancestor of religion, Judaism and Christianity) and a Jewish boy named Moses (Moses once took the enslaved Israelis, opened the Red Sea, went out of Egypt, and wrote the Ten Commandments under the guidance of God for the world to follow. Christians, Jews, and Muslims commonly respected prophets), the story in a land that believes in Christianity has infiltrated the author's and director's thinking about religion, and the film has become thicker.
On July 22, 2011, a 32-year-old Norwegian man Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb near the office of the Oslo National Government, and then used a gun on Ute Island, about 40 minutes’ drive from Oslo. Shot and killed 68 unarmed teenagers who participated in the summer camp of the Norwegian Labour Party Youth League there. The murderer was arrested quickly, and his criminal motives followed: after the end of World War II, a large number of Arabs and Turks participated as laborers in the construction of a wasteful Western Europe, and many Muslims also settled here as extreme Right-winger, Anders has been worried that with the increase in Muslim immigration, Christian Europe will one day be replaced by Muslim Europe. He vowed to drive Muslim immigrants out of Europe, and the tolerant immigration policy that the Norwegian Labor Party has been pursuing is something he cannot tolerate. Although he committed the crime alone, he represented a huge ethnic group. Although on the surface they have been living together peacefully, the hostility of Europeans towards Muslims has been surging until the "September 11" incident, when the hatred between Europeans and Muslims was completely ignited, a kind of fear of being completely Muslimized like Anders. The emotions began to spread. Since then, various terrorist incidents based on religious beliefs have emerged one after another. On July 7, 2005, a subway bombing occurred in London. After the investigation, it was found that all the perpetrators were Muslims. Coincidentally, [Mr. Ibrahim and the Flower of the Quran] was released this year.
Everyone called Mr. Ibrahim’s grocery store "Arab’s shop" because he opened the door like an Arab from the morning until eight o’clock in the evening, and was not closed on weekends. Momo hesitated while stealing canned food in the grocery store. I also comforted myself with "I don't care, he is an Arab". And Mr. Ibrahim seemed to be able to see through Mamo's thoughts and said to him that he was not an Arab, but came from the "Golden Crescent". The "Golden Crescent" is the area between Anatolia and Persia, belonging to Turkey, and the golden crescent is also the pattern of the Turkish flag. Although there is no explanation in the movie, Mr. Ibrahim is probably one of the Turks who came to Western Europe after World War II and then stayed to settle.
Mr. Ibrahim never concealed his Muslim identity. Whenever Momo asked him something, he always responded with the phrase "I know what is in my Quran". On that day, Momo asked why he could drink (the Qur'an, Chapter 5, verse 90 mentioned that “drinking and gambling are both evil acts of the devil”). Mr. Ibrahim said that he was a Sufi, just like Momo After reading the dictionary, I found that Sufis are a faction of Islamic mysticism. They have given the Islamic faith a mystical meaning and practice asceticism. Mr. Ibrahim is a Benevolent practitioner of Sufis. He lives happily and far away from the poverty of his homeland. He treats the people around him with the most compassionate heart. He is pious, and he will say what the Quran is like, but Without being rigid or dogmatic, he has always faced the world with an open attitude. This old man completely subverted the turban-wrapped terrorist image that Muslims are usually portrayed in film and television works or TV news, and showed the most wise and tolerant side of human nature.
Like Muslims, Jews have always been on the brink of exile in Europe. The story of Jesus Christ being betrayed by the Jews at that time made thousands of Christians believe that the Jews must be condemned by God for this. Whether it was the religious trials in the Middle Ages, or the Crusades in 1099, until the Second World War, the persecution of Jews never ceased. In the original book "Mr. Ibrahim and the Flower of the Quran", Mr. Ibrahim told Momoa the cause of his father's death: "He lost his parents when he was very young because they were all captured by Nazi soldiers. Went to the concentration camp, and finally died in the concentration camp. Although your father escaped the catastrophe, he did not recover. Perhaps he felt guilty because he was still alive in this world." The plot did not appear in this movie. , Which complements the reason why Momo’s father has been deceived all the time, and the root of his final self-determination, is precisely his Jewish identity and persecuted childhood.
In order to redeem the sins of genocide against Jews in those years, Western powers helped Jews to establish modern Israel, but at the cost of expelling Muslims and Christians, thus planting the enmity between Muslims and Jews. The battle for the holy city of Jerusalem has become the focus of disputes between Muslims, Jews and Christians. The gunfire on both sides of the Jordan River has never stopped. But in [Mr. Ibrahim and the Flower of the Koran], an old Muslim gentleman and a little Jewish boy, although locked in their faith and lineage, easily crossed the "Jordan" in the emotion that the two are not father and son better than father and son. River". The director said that he wanted to make a film about tolerance and friendliness. It was typical that day when Momoa went to the Turkish bath with the old man. Momoa asked the old man: "You have also been circumcised?" The old man replied, "Muslims are like Jews." "Momo asked: "Then you may also be a Jew?" Jews have been circumcised since they were young. Whether a boy has a foreskin has become an important indicator of identifying Jews. The director said that he hopes this is a film about tolerance and friendliness. In the scene, he so easily resolved the religious divide and refuted the prejudices of the secular world. The film also has another unspecified religious background: during the Second World War, Turkey, as a neutral country, was one of the few countries that offered asylum to Jews.
On the way back to Turkey, the old man repeatedly blindfolded Momo and led him into religious buildings, asking him to guess which church they had entered based on the smell. The one smelling candles is the Catholic Church of St. Anthony, the smelling smell is the Orthodox Sophia Cathedral, and the church smelling "foot odor" (Muslims need to take off their shoes before entering the mosque) is a Muslim mosque. He also Take the Momo to watch the Arabian spinning dance. They believe that everything is spinning all the time, so they enter meditation through spinning, thus approaching their Allah. The old man brought Momo into cultures that he had never been exposed to in such a vivid way, but just like his motivation to give Momo a copy of the Koran, he never tried to change the child’s Belief simply wants him to understand another culture and understand that different religions "are not a disease, but just another way of thinking." Seeing this, people can't help but feel embarrassed. If the world can understand all the disturbances like Mr. Ibrahim, I believe that there will be a lot less blood shed due to different beliefs, but there are too many people who can't see through.
Mr. Ibrahim finally returned to his homeland, but he also came to the end of his life, or, as he said, "melted into the vast eternity." But fortunately, Momo inherited his grocery store, inherited his tolerance for the world, and inherited the old man’s "Quran". "I know what is in my Quran." The old man used to say that, what is in the Quran? It's not an allusion, it's not a doctrine, it's just two blue daisies that have dried on the pages of a yellow book, very beautiful.

View more about Monsieur Ibrahim reviews

Extended Reading
  • America 2022-03-27 09:01:20

    The repetition of the life trajectory at the end is a bit hypocritical.

  • Aisha 2022-03-16 09:01:07

    How did a "bloodless" family relationship that crossed the cultural/religious barrier between Muslims and Jews gradually sprouted after the biological mother who had a blood relationship left the protagonist... It is a typical year-end acquaintance movie with all the elements of the same type. The wonderful thing is Cross-cultural content. Full text: http://hou26.org/zeta/children02.htm

Monsieur Ibrahim quotes

  • Momo: You're circumcised too?

  • Momo: When are you going to adopt me?

    Monsieur Ibrahim: Tomorrow if you like.